Muriel Barbery Quotes

Quotes about:

Art Assumption Cats Children Dying Emotions Eternity

People aim for the stars, and they end up like goldfish in a bowl. I wonder if it wouldn't be simpler just to teach children right from the start that life is absurd.

Muriel Barbery

Life, Stars, Children

Muriel Barbery (2013). “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”, p.15, Gallic Books

46 Copy quote
There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature.

Muriel Barbery

Tree, Feelings, Humanity

42 Copy quote
Personally I think that grammar is a way to attain beauty.

Muriel Barbery

Thinking, Way, Grammar

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September 2, 2013.

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I thought: pity the poor in spirit who know neither the enchantment nor the beauty of language.

Muriel Barbery

Enchantment, Spirit, Language

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August 31, 2006.

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We think we can make honey without sharing in the fate of bees, but we are in truth nothing but poor bees, destined to accomplish our task and then die.

Muriel Barbery

Fate, Thinking, Honey

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...we have to surpass ourselves every day, make every day undying. Climb our own personal Everest and do it in such a way that every step is a little bit of eternity. That's what the future is for: to build the present, with real plans, made by living people.

Muriel Barbery

Inspirational, Real, People

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August 31, 2006.

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Because beauty consists of its own passing, just as we reach for it. It's the ephemeral configuration of things in the moment, when you can see both their beauty and their death.

Muriel Barbery

Movement, Ephemeral, Moments

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August 31, 2006.

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With the exception of love, friendship and the beauty of Art, I don't see much else that can nurture human life.

Muriel Barbery

Art, Friendship Love, Human Life

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August 31, 2006.

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. . . maybe that's what life's all about: there's a lof of despair, but also the odd moments of beauty, where time is no longer the same . . . [like] something suspended . . . an elsewhere . . . an always within a never. Yes, that's is, an always within a never.

Muriel Barbery

Despair, Odd, Moments

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The real ordeal is not leaving those you love but learning to live without those who don't love you.

Muriel Barbery

Real, Love You, Leaving

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In a split second of eternity, everything is changed, transfigured. A few bars of music, rising from an unfamiliar place, a touch of perfection in the flow of human dealings - I lean my head slowly to one side, reflect on the camellia on the moss on the temple, reflect on a cup of tea, while outside the wind is rustling foliage, the forward rush of life is crystalized in a brilliant jewel of a moment that knows neither projects nor future, human destiny is rescued from the pale succession of days, glows with light at last and, surpassing time, warms my tranquil heart.

Muriel Barbery

Heart, Destiny, Jewels

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August, 2006.

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When someone that you love dies..it's like fireworks suddenly burning out in the sky and everything going black.

Muriel Barbery

Sky, Black, Burning

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Madame Michel has the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside she is covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary--and terrible elegant.

Muriel Barbery

Real, Simple, Feelings

71 Copy quote
Live, or die: mere consequences of what you have built. What matters is building well. So here we are, I've assigned myself a new obligation. I'm going to stop undoing, deconstructing, I'm going to start building. What matters is what you are doing when you die... I want to be building.

Muriel Barbery

What Matters, Want, Building

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September, 2008.

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When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment?

Muriel Barbery

Heart, Greatness, Jewels

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In our world, that's the way you live your grown-up life: you must constantly rebuild your identity as an adult, the way it's been put together it is wobbly, ephemeral, and fragile, it cloaks despair and, when you're alone in front of the mirror, it tells you the lies you need to believe.

Muriel Barbery

Lying, Believe, Mirrors

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Colombe Josse is the older Jesse daughter. Colombe Jesse is also a sort of tall blonde leek who dresses like a penniless Bohemian. If there is one thing I despise, it is the perverse affectation of rich people who go around dressing as if they were poor, in second-hand clothes, ill-fitting gray bonnets, socks full of holes, and flowered shirts under threadbare sweaters. Not only is it ugly, it is also insulting: nothing is more despicable than a rich man's scorn for a poor man's longing.

Muriel Barbery

Daughter, Gratitude, Men

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...This is the first time I have met someone who seeks out people and who sees beyond. [...] We never look beyond our assumptions and, what's worse, we have given up trying to meet others; we just meet ourselves. We don't recognize each other because other people have become our permanent mirrors. If we actually realized this, if we were to become aware of the fact that we are alone in the wilderness, we would go crazy. [...] As for me, I implore fate to give me the chance to see beyond myself and truly meet someone.

Muriel Barbery

Crazy, Fate, Mirrors

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, books.google.ru. September, 2 2013.

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...what I dread more than anything else in this life is noise...silence helps you to go inward..anyone who is interested in something more than just life outside actually needs silence.

Muriel Barbery

Silence, Needs, Inward

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Talent consists not in inventing shapes but in causing those that were invisible to emerge.

Muriel Barbery

Shapes, Talent, Invisible

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How to measure a life's worth? The important thing, said Paloma one day, is not the fact of dying, it is what you are doing in the moment of your death.

Muriel Barbery

Important, Dying, One Day

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September 2, 2013.

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But many intelligent people have a sort of bug: they think intelligence is an end in itself. They have one idea in mind: to be intelligent, which is really stupid. And when intelligence takes itself for its own goal, it operates very strangely: the proof that it exists is not to be found in the ingenuity or simplicity of what it produces, but in how obscurely it is expressed.

Muriel Barbery

Stupid, Intelligent, Thinking

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September 2, 2013.

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The raw tomato, devoured in the garden when freshly picked, is a horn of abundance of simple sensations, a radiating rush in one's mouth that brings with it every pleasure. . . . a tomato, an adventure.

Muriel Barbery

Adventure, Simple, Garden

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..if you dread tomorrow, it's because you don't know how to build the present, you tell yourself you can deal with it tomorrow, and it's a lost cause anyway because tomorrow always ends up becoming today, don't you see?

Muriel Barbery

Today, Causes, Becoming

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'Life has meaning and we grown-ups know what it is' is the universal lie that everyone is supposed to believe. Once you become an adult and you realize that's not true, it's too late.

Muriel Barbery

Lying, Believe, Adults

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September 2008.

8 Copy quote

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Born: May 28, 1969
Occupation: Novelist
Cite this Page: Citation

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